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House of Assembly - Fifty-Fifth Parliament, First Session (55-1)
2024-02-07 Daily Xml
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Motions

Yorke Peninsula Turning Lanes

Mr ELLIS (Narungga) (11:30): I move:

That this house—

(a) recognises the danger of vehicles needing to slow down to a safe turning speed on a highway so as to enter the Yorke Peninsula's coastal communities;

(b) notes the additional danger caused by the fact that the busiest time of year for tourism to these coastal communities coincides with the time when fully-laden grain trucks are on the road; and

(c) calls on the state government to invest in more turning lanes for these coastal communities.

It gives me great pleasure to lead off the new and improved system of motions that we have in this parliament, and in so doing would note that that agreement was reached between the two parties without much consultation with the crossbench. That is fine, that is all part of it. It is inarguably an improved system that will have a smaller Notice Paper, but it occurred to me, when I was approached to withdraw my motions that had been sitting on the Notice Paper, lost in the litany of other motions that had found their way there and were stuck there, that it would be beneficial to keep mine on the Notice Paper so as to continue to debate it.

That I did, and it finds itself at No. 1, and I apologise to the parties for having disrupted the start of the new scheme, but it is an important motion; it was one I moved in the first place to bring attention to this issue we have on the peninsula and I suspect in other regional communities, and it gives me great pleasure to now move and discuss it. I will endeavour to keep it brief so that we can get on to normal transmission sooner rather than later, but I want to make a brief contribution about what I think would be a rather cost-effective way to make a significant improvement to road safety in regional communities.

There are a number of coastal communities up and down my electorate that are accessed off the main highway without the benefit of a turning lane. That requires that cars that slow down on roads that are now 100km/h (and hopefully can get back to 110km/h in due course) have to slow down on that highway without the benefit of a turning lane to a near complete stop in order to turn into the coastal community they are visiting or that holiday home they are returning to and are hoping to do so safely.

As I mentioned in the motion, the busiest time for people to visit those communities is often during the summer, when the beaches are at their most enjoyable and people have a bit of time off, but it also coincides with the time that grain trucks are getting to and from port. Those trucks are getting bigger and there are more B-doubles and road trains on the road and they take quite a bit of time to come to a complete standstill when they are fully laden.

If that is the case—and we have these people visiting our community more so who choose to indicate late and brake late to try to make their turn or do not provide as much warning as they should to the trucks behind them—we can have a dangerous situation where a truck driver going about a normal, regular commute has a car slam on its brakes in front of him or her and has to try to pull up that fully-laden truck to a stop in a shorter distance than might otherwise be desired.

That is a dangerous situation in my view: having these cars slow down to a near stop on the main highway. Trucks are just an example; plenty of other vehicles take longer to stop than people realise and it is a problem that could be fixed with a rather cheap and effective solution, that being that we provide a simple turning lane, which is common everywhere else in our road network, so that those cars can slow down off the highway.

There are a number of communities—and I would like to highlight a few of them in this brief contribution—that would be beneficiaries of such a scheme that have brought it to my attention and have been advocating and lobbying hard to see it brought to fruition. They are the ones I have been pushing for the almost six years that I have been a member of this place.

The first one I would like to bring to the attention of the house is at Hardwicke Bay. This problem pre-dated my time in the parliament. I have sighted a letter from the department under the stewardship of the previous member, Steven Griffiths, who advocated to the then minister to get that turning lane in place. At that time, the department made the recommendation that it was not an effective use of money to try to bring about that change.

If I am successful in getting this fund delivered, Hardwicke Bay would be a prime candidate to have the first turning lane installed. Not only is it an incredibly popular coastal community but the entrance to it is also on a bit of a blind turn, which really exacerbates that problem of cars slowing down to turn off the highway and a truck that may be coming up behind that car cannot necessarily see that the car has stopped at all. Even if that car has provided adequate notice, has given enough gradual slow down for the truck behind it, it might be that the truck does not see it and cannot bring itself to a stop quickly enough.

Ashley Gordon and the progress association have been advocating for a long time and are continuing to beat the drum and it is an absolute priority of mine to ensure that that turning lane is delivered. It would be a wonderful thing. I am sure the locals are getting sick of hearing, 'Yes, I'm working on it; yes, I'm working on it,' and are keen to see an actual outcome now. I continue to repeat to those people that I am doing my best to see it happen and I hope we can bring it to fruition soon.

I will briefly touch on two more towns. One is Port Vincent, which again is an increasingly popular community, a jewel in our coastal crown and such a wonderful community, with the sailing club and so many vibrant community clubs. With that popularity comes increased traffic, and having to slow down on the main road to turn into Port Vincent is creating more and more dangerous situations.

I have to highlight a moment of great bemusement to me and the community of Port Vincent. We have been lobbying over the course of six years for this turning lane to try to make the community that little bit safer. Recently, to our absolute bewilderment, on the site we imagined a turning lane would be built, at the location we thought the asphalt might be laid to enable cars to slow down off the main highway, a series of big lights have been erected so people can see in the dark. Again, a wonderful safety measure but quite bemusing to us that, after advocating for a turning lane and being knocked back time and time again, these monstrosities of lights have been erected exactly where we imagined that turning lane would be.

I do not know if that is a not very subtle message from the department trying to put a final nail in the coffin of that turning lane but I still hope—and it would be a slightly more expensive exercise now I imagine—that we can get those brand-new lights ripped out, a turning lane installed and those lights installed somewhere else where they would be of more benefit. Maybe adjacent to our turning lane would be tremendous. That is another community that has been pushing hard and I hope to see rewarded soon.

Finally, in a slightly different circumstance but just as valuable nonetheless, I recently visited a local homeowner who lives adjacent to the recycling depot at the busy intersection into Brinkworth. He frequently hears the air brakes of trucks going past and the screeching of car brakes trying to slow down to turn into Brinkworth to visit one of the many tremendous community clubs, creating a dangerous situation.

In conclusion, it would be tremendously beneficial for coastal communities and for towns like Brinkworth to have a fund so we can start to chip away at these turning lanes. We could try to chew off one or two a year to make sure they are safe and slowly work our way through the backlog. It would be tremendously cost effective. I cannot imagine it would cost a great deal and it would provide a significant benefit to those communities and to the people who see those dangerous situations that arise on an almost daily basis and who have been advocating for many years.

To the people of Hardwicke Bay, Port Vincent, Brinkworth and all the other coastal communities, I want to reassure them that we are continuing to advocate and hopefully we will get some progress soon.

The Hon. V.A. TARZIA (Hartley) (11:38): I rise today to support the member for Narungga's motion. What a beautiful part of the state Yorke Peninsula certainly is. I remember that during our time in government the first boat I helped commission was the Vincent Star. No, it was not named after me; it was named after this beautiful place called Port Vincent.

It is worth noting that our time in government gave us the opportunity to travel to many of these wonderful regional towns. I might put a few things on the record to explain to the house—a bit of a refresher—how the former government was certainly investing in some of these regional roads like never before. I remember that we were investing over $2 billion, in fact, to fix more than 4½ thousand kilometres of regional roads. In fact, the former government, in our four years, spent more than $1.8 billion on regional roads, compared to a pathetic $384 million by Labor in their last four years. It meant that we were spending almost five times as much on country roads over the period.

We know that these regional roads were neglected by those opposite for years and years. We inherited a massive road maintenance backlog that we were chipping away at and that we were really achieving great inroads with. There were obviously hundreds of millions of dollars that were spent to benefit roads in and around the electorate of Narungga. That was a $14½ million regional road network package that included pavement repairs, vegetation clearing and line marking in areas like the Spencer Highway between Maitland and Minlaton, the Yorke Highway between St Vincent Highway and Curramulka, the Copper Coast Highway west of Kulpara township, and Minlaton Road between Minlaton and Stansbury.

I have to say that some of my best family holidays were spent at a place called Stansbury, to which of course I have a very strong connection. We would go there most years as a family. What a great part of the world it is. The member for Narungga has a lot of amazing coastal towns right throughout the peninsula.

I think we certainly do need to be aware of the danger of these vehicles needing to slow down to a safe turning speed on a highway, especially when you have those fully laden grain trucks on the road. Let me tell you, it is not much fun being stuck behind them when you cannot overtake them in certain parts of the peninsula.

Of course, do not forget, we were also delivering the road duplication and overpass—and how good is that? We were delivering the $124.5 million Port Augusta and Port Wakefield road duplication and overpass, and has that not absolutely been a game changer as well?

We also saw the speed limit on eight major regional Australian roads lifted to 110 km/h from 100 km/h, after significant safety upgrades. I do respect—especially for our country members who are on the road a lot—that 10 kilometres really does make a difference and adds up. Of course, you need the road condition to be apt; it has to be safe to do so. But I can acknowledge and appreciate why that is so important, so that our members can get where they need to go as quickly as they reasonably can. We were able to actually lift the speed limit on some of those major regional roads.

We also delivered the Rural Roads Safety Package, and that included the Goyder Highway between Crystal Brook and Gulnare, Andamooka Road between Andamooka and Olympic Dam, and also Cleve Road between Cleve and Kimba, which is also another fantastic part of the world. Unfortunately, we saw from those opposite that, instead of investing in our regional road network, they actually reduced the speed limit on eight key roads.

Coming back to the motion at hand, we certainly support the motion of the member for Narungga. It is important that the state government does invest more in more turning lanes for these coastal communities. I know that it would certainly be appreciated by those communities, but it would also be appreciated by tourists. We know that many thousands of people, right throughout the year, whether it is just to get away or for fishing, will get along to the Yorke Peninsula. I think that the government should really take on this motion; it is a very sound, sage motion that has been moved by the member for Narungga. We on this side of the chamber will certainly support it.

Mr TELFER (Flinders) (11:43): I have a quick contribution to commend my friend from across the gulf waters on a motion that looks at the safety and productivity of his community on Yorke Peninsula. It really does reflect the need for us, as decision-makers in this place, to be able to have an open mind and a determined spirit to invest in our regional road network, especially the intersections into our communities. Now that the visitation numbers are higher, we have people on our roads who are not necessarily used to country driving; we have interactions with heavy vehicles, as has already been articulated; and we have ever-increasing domestic use. Investment into our regional road networks is crucial for the ongoing productivity and contribution to our state's economy.

The words that have been spoken here in favour of this motion really do highlight the passion that we, as regional members of parliament, have for keeping our communities safe on our roads. We have had challenges over the last 12 months with road safety and the unacceptable road toll. These sorts of investments into intersections in regional roads across South Australia are essential to make sure we are continuing to be proactive when looking at keeping our communities safe.

Debate adjourned on motion of Mr Odenwalder.

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